I'm worried HFS ds 5 is seen as a nuisance in playground. How to help?

[sh77]

Ds was diagnosed with HFA in November. He is in Reception. Some days I wonder if he really has it and I imagined all the traits but other days I realise that I did the right thing.

This morning at drop off, a Y1 boy asked him to stop following the boys in the playground. He likes tag and I'm guessing is chasing other kids even if they don't want to play. He doesn't know how to play like kids of his own age and will just chase. He is a very happy, brigt, over-confident (has no qualms about shouting hi the Head from across a room) child and is oblivious to what others might think. His other issue is he doesn't understand personal space.

My other bug bear is that he consistently at the bottom of the "beanstalk" for points. I think he has made a lot of progress in some areas and so I don't understand why he is always at the bottom. I feel like an idiot raising this as an issue with his teacher but it really saddens me.

School are aware of all these issues. I had a few meetings with them in the first term and I suggested they parmer him up with older kids. They have suggested I get an OT involved.

Any tips?

Sounds like my DC1, who is also in reception and has suspected HFA. I've no answers but interested to hear about others experiences.

The beanstalk chart sounds slightly unfair to me In this instance. There must be other methods of charting progress visually that don't place your child at the bottom.

It sounds like school need to work with him to help him with social skills and to learn how to play with others.

As for the beanstalk school need to realise that for him they need different standards for when to move him than others, they need to look at what is progress or good behaviour for him rather than look at a general level. I would mention to him that they need to be fair in their expectations

Had similar issues with my DS but he has improved greatly - now he is 6. I also sometimes wondered whether I was just imagining he had any issues - but at other times it was obvious he did.

I constantly talk to him about what is appropriate behaviour - if we are watching TV or reading a book we chat about how the characters behaved - was it nice or not - what perception does DS have of them because of their behaviour - what does he think the other characters will think of them. Or of the characters act in an appropriate way I ask him what would have been an inappropriate way for them to act.

Role playing is good too. You play the part of your DS in the yard and he can be another child. Show him how his behaviour might be a bit annoying. Hopefully he will spot it is annoying for others. You might have to exaggerate the behaviour a bit. Ask him to suggest a more appropriate way for you to behave

The school has a separate chart for DS in addition to the reward chart for the class. He earns points on his chart for behaving properly - like walking calming in the corridors - maybe you could suggest something like this to his teachers

DS's behaviour is vastly improved this year as school is begining to make sense to him. It took him longer to learn the rules of the playground games. He's still prone to getting upset if things don't go his way - and there was an one incident where he hit someone at the start of the year. He's much more settled this year. I found his first year in school much more stressful

Have you ever even to an OT?